AGM: FBN Holdings Urges Appeal Court To Set Aside Interim Order

FBN Holdings Plc has urged the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal to set aside the ex-parte order of the Federal High Court, which stopped the bank’s Annual General Meeting (AGM).

The Holding company, in a Notice of Appeal filed on its behalf by its team of lawyers led by Mutalubi Adebayo (SAN), is also asking the upper court for an order allowing its appeal and an order directing that a different Judge of the Federal High Court Lagos be assigned to hear the substantive matter.

The lawyer further argued that the lower court lacked the jurisdiction to grant the ex-parte order because the condition precedent under the Federal High Court Rules for the hearing of the suit was not met by the petitioners.

Three aggrieved FBN Holdings Plc shareholders, Olojede Adewole Solomon, Adebayo Oluwafemi Abayomi, and Ogundiran Emmanuel Adejare, had approached the court presided over by Justice Nicholas Oweibo seeking an order stopping the bank’s Annual General Meeting scheduled for August 15 pending the hearing of their suit number FHC/L/CP/1575/23.

In his ruling delivered on August 9, 2023, Justice Oweibo directed FBN Holdings Plc not to hold its scheduled and statutory AGM until the issues before the court were resolved.

However, FBN Holdings Plc, in its appeal filed on six grounds of law, urged the appellate court to set aside the ex-parte order and that it should assign the matter to a new judge for hearing.

The appellant argued that the trial judge erred in law when he granted the prayer sought by the respondents in their Motion ex parte dated August 8, 2023 while they were seeking the same relief in their substantive suit before the same court.

Adebayo contended that by granting the respondents prayer, the judge prejudged the substantive issues even before they were heard.

The respondents have not filed their reply to the appeal, and no date has been fixed for its hearing.